In Stasis
by JohnnyStyle
Summary: In the dead of night Seven and The Captain go to sickbay to check on some precious cargo. A possible answer as to what happened to the borg infant. Rate T for adult themes and references to pleading with replicators. J7


In Stasis

Seven of Nine stepped into the darkened sick bay. She was glad the doctor had decided recently that what passed as the dead of night on a starship was the perfect time to uses his holodeck time. He was after all unconstrained by the rythms of organic life. Seven was just glad she didn't have to deal with him asking about the apparent interruption in her regeneration cycle. She needed no tricoder to tell her the cause; after all she was heading towards it right now. She made her way through the labs at the rear of the sick bay and went through to a storeroom. Sitting in amongst three generators she had designed her self was an infant sized stasis pod.

She requested the computer lock the door under what appeared to a Borg algorithm but was actually an interface for a deeply personal password she had started using. After hearing the usual tones and chirps of Voyager's systems complying with her request she went to work checking and double-checking all the systems connected to the stasis pod. She worked quickly through the checklist. All the generators where working, the emergency solar panels would deploy correctly, the emergency single use transporter was experiencing a minor fluxuation in its hiesenberg compensator but that was quickly fixed. Shields were working fine. Seven sighed the entire thing only had a single impulse engine. She wished she could attach a warp engine, but the federation hadn't be able to make an engine smaller than that on the mark 9 shuttle and the Borg had not yet assimilated a species with such an achievement before her separation, no rescue from the collective, Captain Kathryn Janeway had rescued her from the Borg and in time Seven had assisted the captain in rescuing others from the collective as well. Just like the little one in the pod.

Satisfied that all systems were operating efficiently seven reached out and gently touched the controls. With almost no noise at all a section of the pods armour lifted so that Seven could see the pods contents. A beautiful infant girl who bore the scares of assimilation rested within. Seven stroked the glass and hoped that despite the slowing of the little girls biology that she could feel the love being giving to her.

"I am sorry little one," she said. "But I cannot hold you in my arms yet."

The doctor had tried to do for the baby what he had done for Icheb, Mezoti and the twins. But the assimilation was too unstable to begin with and Voyagers facilities too limited. Stasis had been the only available option. It was the only way to keep her integrated systems from failing before they could find a place with facilities that would give the child more than a fifty percent chance at survival. In consulting with the Doctor Seven had revealed just how much this was affecting her by requesting nothing less than a one hundred and ten percent chance at survival.

"I'm not going to lose you," Seven said as tears fell down her face. "I lost my other little one you know, when you get old enough to understand I'll tell you all about your big brother the hero."

There was a slight sound as the door swished open and let in the only other possible person to know the password. Captain Janeway had shared that moment with Seven of Nine after all. Seven turned and acknowledge her captain.

"Capt…" she began but corrected herself. "Kathryn."

"We can't keep doing this Seven," the captain said. "Neither of us are going to be able to keep her safe if we both keep losing sleep and regeneration time."

"I concur Kathryn," Seven agreed. "However ever since we rescued the Doctor two months and three days ago I cannot help but dwell on what could have been."

"I wish the Doctor hadn't bought the full force of his ethical subroutines upon that flawed system until we had caught up with him," Janeway sighed. "I could be rocking her to sleep again right now."

"I know Kathryn," Seven said. "But please forgive him he was after all just following your example."

The captain began to stroke Seven's back much more intimately than the slight touches the former drone received from Kathryn when she had excited the older red head with a new discovery or a potential candidate planet for shore leave. The touches always calmed the blonde and she had noticed that the captain seemed to ingest less coffee the next day if one of these encounters had incurred.

Seven sighed to herself as the captain continued. She sighed because just like the beautiful baby she had adopted her life was in a sate of stasis. It was true for most crew upon the ship. Some had decided to put aside work that would further their careers in favour of extra training that would aid Voyager's journey. Many decided not the pursue anything but friendship and those few who had gone further hadn't progressed much beyond asking Chakotay to rearrange the assignment of quarters. Only Tom and B'lanna had the right amount of courage and recklessness to make a life long commitment to each other when they were so very far from the area of space called home.

But Seven felt she had it worst. For after the incident that had gained her that password, which was in fact something Kathryn had told her once quoted as only as someone blessed with edetic memory could, she had finally asked the captain if there would ever be the possibility of their relationship going beyond friendship. The captain had courteously invited her back to her quarters and their velocity match was cut short. Over a light dinner, served after the captain had ordered the replicator to behave, Kathryn had explained why she had tried to avoid relationships. Seven tried her best to give examples to over throw the captains reasons. But she had countered with perfectly valid examples of Voyagers unique situation and why she had to hold herself to a higher standard. A standard that had been drawing the former drone closer to the older woman. Some how the time they spent in the void came up and how the captain had even kept Chakotay at arms length during that time. Seven realised then that perhaps Kathryn was intent on punishing herself.

So Seven had agreed to not actively pursue a relationship but had promised to continue to be there for both the captain and the woman the red head sometimes was unable to acknowledge existed. Seven had also stated she would revisit the topic of a deeper relationship as soon as they hit the alpha quadrant. The captain had smiled and nodded thinking Seven would turn her attention elsewhere sooner or later. But Seven was Borg and she adapted her strategy. Thinking such she asked the captain something that had been on her mind ever since the red head had entered.

"Did you remember this time Kathryn?" she asked.

"All except the last word Seven," she replied.

Seven smiled knowing the way Kathryn would have plead with voyager to open the door and it had in accordance with the programming on the password interface. Only one forgotten word, so this was another small victory. Like the time Seven had convinced the captain to come supervise the first eva's undertaken by Naomi Wildman and the Borg children, or the adding of the second weekly velocity game to their schedules. Of course when she had convinced Kathryn to sign as co-parent on the adoption papers for the little one that slept within the stasis pod, well Seven knew the feeling Cochrane must have had when he first engaged warp drive, how Kahless felt after a great battle or how Sarek and Spock felt when the Khitometer accords where signed and agreed upon. There had been defeats and each felt like she had been assimilated again, particular when the captain had gone to a hologram for the things Seven would give to her, but the victories were beginning to outnumber those.

"Goodnight crew member Hansen-Janeway," the captain said in a whisper.

"I thought we agreed on Janeway-Hansen for the little one?" Seven asked.

"No it sounds better with your true family name first."

Another victory, Seven was glad as it meant she could put off her own plans at making Kathryn jealous of a holographic Commander Chakotay. Both women sung a lullaby together for their adoptive daughter despite that she might not hear before they retired for the night.


End file.
